hello good people i’m dmitry it’s a very good time for the corsair hs80 to arrive to my studio because my current favorite wireless headset the cloud to wireless has a broken volume wheel so i’m really excited to give these a shot to see if they will replace my cloud 2 wireless but this is not corsair’s first ever wireless headset or headset in general yet it baffles me how some of the fundamentals are done wrong with this pair and on the one hand i want to recommend this as like the wireless headset to go to in the 149 price range but on the other hand i’m confused they must have gotten a new product team or something because because some of the things that are done on this headset are completely out of whack all right let me tell you all about that right after this come on it’s easy you just have to catch them man my reflexes suck today i need more speed have no fear 360 hertz is here with the awesome fast ips panel that will make you get good the pg 259 r monitor comes with a regular stand and this awesome rog desk mounting kit to free up some real estate has built-in nvidia reflex latency analyzer to give competitor gamers an accurate measurement of system latency wow and of course it’s g-sync equipped to minimize display stutter and input lag get the proper speed to catch all the frames check it out below so the first conversation is about the price core series positioning it in the middle so below it is the corsair hs70 pro the barracuda x and some like hs50 for example but that’s like the low tier category and above it we have uh the much more expensive virtual also xd rgb which is insane at 269 bucks so the hs80 competes directly against the cloud to wireless at 149 and also approaching the territory the slightly more expensive logitech
g-pro x wireless now in terms of design this is a big departure from the earlier hs series and massive improvement and comfort over the more expensive virtuoso lineup overall though it’s kind of bland with faint yellow accents on the swivel joints i really don’t like the texture differences on the ear cups that attract finger oils and the same story on the top of the headband with that rubberized coating whoever is designing this what is the point of that whole texture difference is when it doesn’t look good as soon as you pick it up you know especially with the rgb right now the headset died because the battery sucks but the rgb logos on each side why i really don’t get the obsession with rgb on a wireless pair especially corsair has been doing it for years whatever but it sucks on battery life and you don’t see it i do like the simplicity of the controls hover with that large power button and a volume wheel with tactile steps immediate volume response and a press function to change your eq profiles just like on previous headsets we have a voice prompt when you mute the microphone when you enable side tone unfortunately there’s no voice prompt when you change the eq profiles so say you accidentally press the volume wheel without realizing it you’ll hear the sound change because the eq will be different but there is no voice prompt to tell you which setting you’re on
below the volume wheel is your battery status led and a usb c port for charging or use the headset in wired mode you connect this thing via the slipstream usb dongle or this cable and that is everything that’s in the box so quite basic and bare bones i appreciate it especially because they put more thought i feel like into build quality and sound quality instead of bombarding you with a bunch of pointless accessories so build quality feels great when you flex these things in weird ways plus the rotation joints have satisfying density to them but then they had to mess things up didn’t they because look at this damn mic arm it’s a flop fest over here without any rigidity or usable flexibility to get the microphone in the right position the microphone is also non-removable and this rotation mechanism will definitely loosen up over time and become annoying alright so microphone quality time the hs80 sounds fantastic even though their marketing blingo is all about high quality broadcast terrific clarity all that jazz it’s true it’s one of the better microphones in the wireless stack because of high bandwidth because of slipstream and there’s no nasty compression happening in the background overall this is one of the better wireless headset microphones next up is the corsair virtuoso rgb xt so this is the really expensive 269 dollar pair from what i see on the graph it is a slightly more sensitive
microphone but in terms of clarity which one did you like more hs80 or this guy let me know in the comments next up is my lovely cloud 2 wireless it doesn’t sound nearly as good as the others in the microphone quality but i appreciate the modular and flexible arm the microphone is removable so they at least got that right and then we have the barracuda x from razer so completely bare bones package no drivers necessary just plug and play solution also a fun little thing to test let’s see if this works right now i’m six meters away in approximate location where the audio signal so let’s see what happens to that microphone quality and i’m gonna start slowly walking back into the scene hi so that’s what would happen if you were to walk away from your computer and unfortunately the signal strength isn’t as good six meters away but i’m pretty sure that’s because the bandwidth here is so high that you have to be fairly close to the dongle for it to completely you know slipstream that 24 bit signal for both your audio and the microphone now comfort wise they went with a flexible adjustable strap with velcro instead of headband size extensions this approach is fine for small to medium heads but might be less forgiving for larger fits it is the reason why i don’t run steelseries headsets i find them too small for me and also this is a no go with vr because the size extensions i mean they’re non-existent therefore they cannot overtake the frames on the side of the
headset keep that in mind luckily the hs80 is perfectly comfortable with glasses and thank god they made the right changes on the ear cup padding that is pleasant on the skin is firm with a soft interior lighting it’s actually quite similar to my fidelio x3 headphone which is surprising given the price difference but this is a thumbs up pair from my side with regards to comfort plus the complementary flat mode on the neck that folds into the body it’s kind of embarrassing how much i like this pair more when it comes to comfort versus the virtuoso rgb xt that wears like a poor skull candy headset the only downside are the non-removable pads and minimal sound isolation because of material these almost sound like an open back headset which is good for me but not ideal for many alright so when it comes to range it’s rated at 18 meters what a joke this is one of the worst wireless ranges i’ve tested in the wireless headset at this price point so that’s important part in my space with a few walls in between i start to drop the signal six meters away from the dongle that is not acceptable and my cloud to wireless is so much better where i get basically proper signal 10 meters away luckily the reconnection when you get back in range is almost instantaneous right you don’t have to wait for it to connect it just goes back into audio but there’s this weird bug that happens whenever i get back into the range so the headset has not been turned on and off it’s just been out
of the wireless range but i get voice prompts on the microphone without touching anything so i get this voice prompt that says the microphone has been turned off and the side tone has been turned off as well that is annoying however i have had no issues with dongle interference either plugged into my motherboard directly or in the case io both has been fine which is not what i can say for many other wireless headsets especially coming from sennheiser and you can also pair a different slipstream products to the same dongle which uh i would love to test but i don’t have a wireless mouse or keyboard from corsair that are slipstream compatible but in my experience with razer it was not a good experience when multi-device pairing for the same dongle like their mouse start to stutter and i just experienced bad signal so i hope that slipstream in terms of connection strength when using multiple devices is better but uh yeah that’s my experience perhaps the most disappointing aspect about this headset is battery life so it’s rated at up to 20 hours but in my usage case scenario with rgb at like below 50 i’m i have to recharge this thing every day so by end of the day right now it’s actually the headset is dead and i’ve been using it fully charged since the morning so six plus hours of usage and then
i get the critical battery warning indicator i really don’t understand why we don’t have a percentage battery indicator in the software so to get most out of this pair turn off rgb and set the auto sleep mode to something reasonable so just get used to plugging this thing every day to recharge which is not fast by the way it took me three hours to go from critical battery indicator to battery full and on the headset that lasts 8 hours that is not good and finally the sound is that redeeming quality because it creates a much better seal versus the virtual also rgb xt it has a much more pleasant and full sound signature the bass hits on my cloud 2 wireless are slightly deeper because of that leather and full concealment of audio within the ear cup but these hold very good ground in terms of resolution smoothness and power so i can game with these comfortably at 50 even toe if i go to like 80 if i want to just really blast my ears it’s still fairly smooth and that sibilance on top does not get distorted or that really harsh that you experience with the cloud 2 wireless so the hs in terms of sound quality especially because of that 24 bit codec which i don’t i don’t think does anything but in terms of the the pleasantness of the sound profile i really enjoy these if you play tarkov you know how crunchy the sound engine is especially if you’re wearing any types of headphones inside the game and the hs80 really gave me a nice smooth experience throughout um but they had to mess up something too right so that is where the eq profiles come in all of which
absolutely suck except for the pure direct one that has like the best sound representation whereas everything else just completely destroys the audio profile to be unbearable now the cherry on top of the audio quality is the included licensing for dolby atmos for headphones so just full instructions activate it on windows to get dolby atmos in certain supported games and that helps to expand the audio environment give you satya better sound stage without totally killing the details and directionality so in games that are supported it’s awesome but i wouldn’t say it’s like the priority value add in most games i still choose stereo because that is the sound profile that i’m most familiar with because the dolby atmos for headphones compatible game list is pretty small so it’s not incredible so in the end i feel like corsair made great strides in improving the comfort versus the previous earlier models in the hs series and also versus the virtual so wireless xd rgb thingy the microphone sounds fantastic probably best in class in terms of the entire range regardless of the price and the audi quality here is the one that you will not be disappointed with as long as you stick with that pure direct mode but the really poor battery life especially on my model and the really flimsy microphone arm that i don’t know i’ll i’ll i’ll get back to you in six months to let you know how this thing has stacked up are just kind of disappointing steps backwards as otherwise this would be an easy recommendation for 149 but sorry corsair not this time until then i’m going to wait for my cloud 2 wireless replacement and yeah i’m dimitri thanks so much for watching check out this other relevant content subscribe for more i’ll talk to you in the next
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